ALONG, I am sure, with most other GPs I applaud
Health Minister Micheál Martin’s smoking ban. Our collective
health as a nation can only benefit.Also, as a GP who practised in
Kilkee before moving to Cobh, I know the types of emergencies that
can develop in a summer resort far from the nearest casualty service.

The minister's decision to keep the Ennis hospital
casualty service open as a 24-hour rather than a 9 to 5 service also
deserves praise and recognition for the difficult political decision
it must have been.

However, it strikes me as deeply ironic that,
in or near his own constituency, he has not taken any interest that
I am aware of in protecting public health around Cork harbour and
further afield from two serious but largely ignored threats.

The first is the rusting hulk of the defunct
ISPAT Irish Steel site. With open tip-head slag heaps still bare of
any greenery after several years' exposure, this is an environmental
catastrophe in slow motion, contaminating marine life in the harbour
and surrounding seas.

ISPAT's contamination of the environment is still
very real in terms of toxic heavy metals such as lead, cadmium and
mercury and whatever else was smelted over its working lifetime leaking
into the tides.

The Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) in the
US warned recently about heavy metal contamination (by mercury in
particular) of predatory fish such as tuna and the implications for
breast-feeding mothers, pregnant women and young children.

Migrating mackerel caught in the harbour and
local seas would have to be included in this group of predatory fish,
at the top of their food chain, which we consume in relatively large
amounts.

And all of this at a time when Indaver Ireland
proposes to build a toxic waste incinerator at Ringaskiddy.

Indaver conceded at the Bord Pleanála
hearing last September that the 'scrubbers' used to clean the emissions
from the proposed incinerator would not be able to remove mercury
gases and vapours.

These could escape into the local fish and dairy
food chains and hence enter us through fish and dairy products.

Contrary to Environment Minister Martin Cullen's
assertion, the incinerator is not going to protect jobs.

Only approximately 50 jobs will be created by
the incinerator itself and it will probably threaten farming and marine
as well as tourist jobs.

Mr Cullen has adopted bullyboy tactics, threatening
local authorities that their regions would suffer due to lack of ability
to attract new industry. One wonders what sort of dirty industry Mr
Cullen would like to attract and what short- and long-term health
risks they might pose.

We know where he stands firmly with big business
and Indaver.

Mr Martin's position is not so clear. Is he with
his electorate on hazardous waste incineration, or is he with his
party colleague (safely far away in Waterford) and heavy industry
at the expense of public health in the Cork harbour area and economic
health in environs further afield?